


Shaghayegh

by paragraph (ebcdic)



Category: Actor RPF, Angel: the Series RPF, Dark Angel RPF, One Tree Hill RPF, Smallville RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Alternate Universe - Thieves, Alternative Universe - FBI, Amnesia, Betrayal, Bodyguard, Bruises, Claustrophobia, Closeted Character, Deception, Dreams and Nightmares, Drug Addiction, Drug Dealing, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Flashbacks, Gang Rape, Grief/Mourning, Guns, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Knives, M/M, Marine Corps, Non-Consensual Drug Use, On the Run, POV Multiple, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Recreational Drug Use, Religion, Robbery, Roommates, Scars, Surveillance, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 04:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12740592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebcdic/pseuds/paragraph
Summary: Jensen shares his totally awesome loft in Los Angeles with two male strippers, Chad and Jared, and spends his days high out of his mind when he's not fucking guys for money. Everything is perfect until his pimp hooks him up with Tom, a diplomat's son who smuggles drugs out of Colombia for fun, and Jensen finds his life turned upside down.





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> For Big Bang.

 

Jensen:  
Cosmo Street, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009

This wasn't Jensen's grand plan for his life he has ambition and talent and shit. It's just his lousy taste in boyfriends that got in the way. Sure he'd been dumb enough to believe Michael "call me Mikey" Rosenbaum when he said he could get Jensen a record contract if he only followed him to L.A., but it's not like he had any idea what that really meant. And sure, he let that prick feed him drugs and fuck him six ways from Sunday but he thought that was getting him somewhere.

Somewhere turned out to be out on the streets.

It's not like Jensen didn't think about tucking tail and heading back home to Texas but he has his pride. Besides, it isn't all that bad. Sure, he shares a loft apartment with two other guys and they still barely make rent every month. And yeah, so he can't hold down a job because he also can't get himself clean so he fucks guys for money. But he's in California where fucking guys is at least semi-acceptable and his loft may have a roach infestation but it also has a gorgeous view.

Which Jensen is admiring from his perch on an armchair he stole from some trick's house while his roommates bicker.

"So, like…" Jared trails off and then blinks at the ceiling. "Oh, yeah, so like I don't think I'm gonna make rent."

"That's total bullshit, Jay." Chad kicks the couch Jared's lying on. "I saw how much whathisface tipped you last night."

"Yeah, at the bar." Jared emphasizes the last word. "So you know Jeff wanted his cut."

Chad throws up his hands. "Whatever, I've got double-shift."

He stomps out of the apartment and slams the door, at which point Jared starts giggling hysterically. Jensen stretches out one of his legs and kicks Jared's shoulder.

"Dude, it's not funny. I don't have enough to cover you either."

"So, like, I'll just do what you do."

"Jared, there's a big difference between grinding in some sweaty asshole's lap for tips and letting that guy stick his dick up your ass."

Jared rolls off the couch and crawls until he's on his knees in front of Jensen. "I could blow a couple of guys. I mean…" He slides his hands up Jensen's thighs. "It's not like I haven't gotten offers before."

Jensen snorts. "And what's Sandy gonna say about that, huh?"

Sandy is Jared's girlfriend. Well, sort of. She's a waitress at the diner across the street who doesn't mind sharing food with Jared during her break. Whether that constitutes a relationship of any sort, Jensen isn't sure.

"We haven't, you know. I mean, it's not really like that."

"Yeah, whatever." He pushes at Jared's chest with his toes until he's got enough room to stand up. "I've gotta go see Chris."

Jared grabs his ankle before he can get more than two steps away. "Don't. You said last time was the last time."

Chris is Jensen's drug dealer and his pimp, usually in that order. Most of the time, Chris doesn't give a shit if Jensen's out every night hustling or not. As long as he gets his two-hundred bucks a week, they're golden. Anyway, if Jensen lets some uptight in the closet executive take him home for the weekend, he can make more than enough to cover that, plus have money left-over for drugs, rent and maybe food.

"Yeah, well, I'm addict. We lie," Jensen retorts and shakes Jared's hand off.

"Why don't you just come work at the club with Chad and me?"

Jared keeps following Jensen around the small bedroom area, although, technically, he could stand in one place and it would have the same effect. Jensen kicks one of the mattresses on the floor to the side and finds the black thong he's been looking for, so he starts stripping off his boxers and shirt, paying no attention to Jared's hovering.

"I mean," Jared continues when he gets no response. "Jeff is kind of a jerk, but at least you get steady pay. And you, you'd get tons of tips."

"Jeff isn't gonna hire me." Jensen slips on a pair of too-large ratty jeans that defy gravity by somehow not sliding off his hips. "He knows what I am and you know he doesn't tolerate that shit. Said so yourself the last time you went in stoned and he almost kicked your ass to the curb."

"Well if you got clean…"

Jensen turns and shoves at Jared's chest. "What the fuck did I just say about that, huh?"

He rubs the fading track marks on his arm almost absently while Jared stares at him with big, wide eyes. Jensen almost feels, bad but then he remembers that Jared is just one in a long string of roommates and there's nothing there between them other than money. With a small sigh, he slips his nicest shirt on and then sits down on the couch to put on his boots. Jared just stands there like a deer in headlights.

"C'mon, man. I'm sorry, alright?" Jensen pulls the laces on his boots tight. "But I'm not a stray dog you're rescuing here. Just worry about how you're gonna pay your share of the rent; I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, fine," Jared mutters.

Jensen stands and pats him on the shoulder. He picks up his wallet and keys before leaving the apartment, not bothering to look back. Even though he told Jared he didn't have enough to cover him, it's not like he can't make it, easy. Just in case and only because he likes his apartment a lot and doesn't want to get evicted.

**  
**Jensen:  
Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California, USA  
2009 

"Jennybaby, long time no see." Chris kisses Jensen's cheek before letting him into his penthouse. "You got my two hundred?"

"Yeah, but I was wondering…" Jensen looks up at Chris through his lashes. "You got any parties going on this weekend?"

"Maybe, but you aren't this guy's type."

Jensen sprawls out across Chris's designer couch and skims his fingers down his chest, displaying himself without a second thought. "He won't think that after he meets me and you know it."

Chris leans down over Jensen and trails his fingers up his arms. "You are good, baby. But not even you can magically make yourself look underage. Face it, Jenny, you're damaged goods."

Without a second thought, Jensen arches up toward Chris. His thigh grazes Chris's groin and he barely holds back a smirk. "Sure you wouldn't rather take your two hundred in trade?"

"Tempting as that is…" Chris straightens up and adjusts his cock in his pants. "I've got a client coming to look at the book."

Even though most of Chris's business involves dealing drugs, he also runs a somewhat high-class escort agency. Jensen's never been an official part of his stable, more like a freelancer, but he still pays the two hundred for the protection and the access to a higher class of clientele. So he isn't in the book, more like a special request.

"Hmm." Jensen slides off the couch, making sure to give Chris a great view of his ass. "Think he's my type?"

The doorbell rings before Chris can answer. He points his finger at Jensen as if to say 'stay there' and goes to the door. Jensen does no such thing; he heads straight into the foyer. Only before he can get close, a hand clamps over his mouth and he's dragged kicking and screaming into one of the back bedrooms. He's thrown onto the bed, but at least let go, so he turns over to get up, but Chris' bodyguard or fucktoy of the week or whatever is blocking the door.

"Can't have you scaring off the customers now, can we?"

The guy is huge, almost as tall as Jared, but built like a brick shithouse. His teeth flash, pearly white, and his blue eyes sparkle in amusement.

"Fuck off, flavor of the week," Jensen spits at him, but doesn't bother to move off the bed.

"That's not nice." The guy leans casually against the door. "It's Tom. Who the fuck are you?"

Jensen snorts. "You don't know, then Chris probably doesn't want you to know, so I ain't telling."

Tom crosses over to the dresser and pulls out a little packet, waving it in Jensen's face. "That so?"

Before Jensen can even attempt to snatch the packet, Tom's got it out of reach. Jensen sighs in annoyance. "It's Jenny, alright?"

"Ah, the infamous Jenny, then?" Tom grabs the mirror that's sitting on the nightstand and empties the packet onto it. "Always thought you were a girl the way Chris talks about you."

With deft hands, Tom cuts the coke into neat lines using what looks like a discount card for Eddie Bauer, which is fucking hysterical. When he's done, he sits on the bed and carefully holds the mirror in front of Jensen, rolled up bill twirling between the fingers on his other hand.

Jensen licks his lips and looks at Tom through his lashes. "I can be whatever you want."

Tom laughs. "That's pretty cheesy, you know that, right?"

But he hands over the bill and lets Jensen snort up a line. Jensen hasn't had the good stuff in awhile; he takes whatever he can get. It hits him like a freight train, like a friendly punch to the face, like the best fuck he's ever had and he wipes his nose with the back of his hand and smiles at Tom.

"Yeah, but cheesy works in this business."

He tries to hand the bill back to Tom, but he nods toward the mirror and doesn't take it. Jensen does another line and then lays back, lets it hit him, warm him up until he feels like he's burning. Like he has to move or he'll die. Tom sets the mirror aside and crawls on top of Jensen.

"In that case, I'm going to fuck you so hard, you'll be feeling it for days."

Jensen giggles, grabs Tom around his neck and pulls him down until their hips crash together. Both of them are already hard and even through their clothes, the touch feels like electricity through Jensen's veins. Even if it didn't feel good, Jensen would let Tom have his way anyway, after all, Tom did get him high for free and fair's fair.

**  
**-Chad:  
Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, California, USA  
2009 

Chad's isn't your typical LA story. He didn't come out here for fame and fortune. Actually, he didn't even mean to be in LA at all, ever, but after he was dishonorably discharged from the Marines, this is where they dumped him and he couldn't face going back home to Buffalo, so this is where he stayed.

At first he tried to get contract jobs or security gigs, but his discharge had been pretty high-profile. Everyone in every industry even remotely related to the military knew who he was and what he had done. It really didn't matter that he was a dumb kid at the time, so now he strips as Rear Admiral, which is fucking hysterical, all things considered.

He used to have an apartment in the Valley, but his building got torn down to build like a fucking Super-Giant Ass Wal-Mart and he realized that he was wasting so much money driving into West Hollywood every day and moved back into the city. While he was looking for apartments, he realized if he went with something cheap, he could save up and get the fuck out of this shithole town.

So that's why he lives with Jensen Ackles, whore extraordinaire, and Jared "naïve is my middle name" Padalecki in a rat-hole loft with mattresses strewn on the floor and a shower that only works if you use a wrench to twist the knobs.

It's not all bad though. He's saved up 53 grand and is only a short seven k away from his goal. Maybe a couple more months and he'll be gone. He's been thinking someplace more like home, maybe Chicago or something smaller like Fargo or even Butte; someplace that actually has seasons based on nature and not awards shows.

When he's grinding in the laps of dirty old men, he thinks about crisp, cold air filling his lungs. About blinding white against his eyes when the sun hits the snow and the sting of icy wind hitting his face, how it was hard to tell anyone apart on the street when they were all dressed in bulky coats with scarves covering their mouths and the taste of hot chocolate after spending hours shoveling the snow. It may be dirty there and have a high crime rate and he didn’t have the best childhood ever, but it’s still home.

Tonight, he resolutely does not think about how Jared somehow blew his rent money again or how Jensen looks like death warmed over or that Jeff keeps slapping his ass and is probably expecting a blow job later. He's not supposed to care about Jared and Jensen and at least Jeff is kind of hot.

Only he kind of does care about Jensen. He doesn't want to, but he does, because Jensen reminds him of someone, someone he'd rather forget.

**  
**Chad:  
Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan  
2003 

Poppies; endless acres of them leading up to beige buildings which look like a mirage, shimmering in the heat. There's an elderly woman wearing a burqa, she almost looks like she's performing the asr, it's that time of day, except she's wailing. Wailing over and over again, "No, no, no."

She looks up at him and says something else in what sounds like Dari and like always, Chad can't understand even though he's fluent in the language. He keeps saying, "I'm sorry, I don't understand," but she just wails louder.

Chad is alone with her, his battalion got hit and in the chaos, he got separated from the rest. He feels uncomfortable, not because he's afraid, but because he knows what will happen to her if the village catches her with a ghayr mahram with no escort. Looking around warily, he slowly comes to realize that the village is deserted and he feels like wailing himself.

**  
**Chad:  
Cosmo Street, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009 

He wakes up with a scream lodged in his throat, panting, sweating, with his fists clenched in the cheap, dirty sheets. When he lifts his head, Jensen is sitting there in the armchair, staring at him. Or in his direction, at any rate. He's got the blinds open again and Chad squints against the light. No wonder he was having that dream with the sun baking on him like that.

"Jesus fuck, Ackles, shut the blinds, I'm trying to sleep," Chad grits out.

Before Jensen can answer, Chad gets up and goes into the bathroom. It's about the size of a small closet and you have to step into the bathtub to get to the sink. The tap water is ice cold and it feels good against his skin. He holds his head under the faucet and waits for his heart to stop racing. That dream always shakes him to the core and it’s all that he can think about for days afterward.

"What were you dreaming about?"

Chad whips his head up and finds himself falling into a fighting stance despite being years past military training. "The fuck, Jensen?"

Jensen holds up his hands. "Just askin'."

He's wearing jeans and no shirt and there are bruises on his hips and chest. His pupils are blown and he keeps wiping his nose with the back of his hand while Chad just stands there and stares.

"I thought you were done with that shit." Chad spits into the sink and turns off the water.

"I don’t need a fucking babysitter, okay?" Jensen sits on the edge of the tub, blocking Chad's exit.

"Whatever, man." Chad kicks Jensen's calf. "Move."

"Where did you get this scar?" Jensen lightly touches Chad's stomach along the ridge.

Chad slaps his hand away and backs up until he hits the sink. Being in this enclosed space is making him panic. It reminds him of the cell they held him in before shipping him back to the States. How they would hold him down on the bed and beat him bloody. Call him a traitor and a fag and spit in his face for good measure. They didn't want to hear his side of the story, didn't care how many times he pleaded or begged or apologized because they didn't want to be there anymore than he did but it's not like they could take out their frustrations on the President. After awhile, he didn't blame them anymore, but he still hates this bathroom, hates all small spaces.

"Please," Chad says as calmly as he possibly can, "move, okay?"

Jensen drops his hand and stands up in the tub. Chad is watching him, waiting for the chance to escape, but Jensen turns toward him instead of the door. His fingers lightly brush Chad's jaw and then he leans in and kisses him.

"We gotta figure out Jared's rent. I mean, I'm gonna have to kick him out if he keeps this up."

He's gone before Chad can piece any of that together into something coherent. So he just slinks into the kitchen to make some toast, his thumb touching his bottom lip.

**

Jensen comes back a few hours later with a six-pack of cheap beer and roll of cash. The beer goes in the fridge and the cash goes in the freezer. Chad watches all this from the doorway to the bathroom. The blinds are drawn so he's hidden in the shadows but he doesn't make his presence known. People can reveal so much about themselves when they think no one is looking.

For instance, Jensen's world-weary chip on his shoulder seems to disappear as he walks toward the window. A smile plays across his face as he runs his fingers across the blinds before he opens them. The loft has a view of nothing really, just more buildings and a glimpse of the Hollywood sign, and Chad's never understood the appeal.

With the blinds open, Chad is now visible, but just to the left of Jensen's field of vision. He moves silently behind Jensen until his breath ghosts across freckled skin.

"What's your fascination with that window?"

Chad's not sure whether it's funny or sad that Jensen doesn't even flinch. No sense of self-preservation because there's no way he knew Chad was in the room.

"How long have you been here?" Jensen asks without turning around.

"How long do you think?"

Jensen huffs in clear annoyance. "I got Jared's share of the rent if he doesn't come through."

"Yeah." Chad moves until he's standing next to Jensen. "I bet you did."

“Fuck you, Chad. You have no fucking right to judge me,” Jensen seethes.

“Sorry,” Chad says softly. “I just don’t understand why you do this to yourself.”

“I don’t have a choice.” Jensen almost sounds uncertain. “It had to be done.”

“Yeah.” Chad doesn’t bother to argue. There’s no point with Jensen.

They watch the traffic down below in silence. Chad is itching to ask how Jensen got the money but he knows all he'll get is some sarcastic throwaway. Jensen never gives anyone a straight answer about anything unless it's to his own gain. He turns his head slightly so he can see Jensen in profile. If Chad squints just right, Jensen looks so familiar, like the back of his hand. He knows Jensen isn't that boy though. Couldn't be that boy.

That boy is dead.

**  
**Jared:  
Cosmo Street, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009 

All Jared ever wanted was to make a difference in the world. After college he thought he'd join the Peace Corp or go to medical school and take his skills to Africa or someplace else that really needed them. Instead, his advisor convinced him that after September 11th, he could do the most good joining the FBI. So here he is on his first real assignment and hating every second of it.

It's not the dirty apartment or posing as a stripper that bothers him; it's the fact that he doesn't feel like he's helping anything. He's been undercover for three months and all he's figured out is acting dumb is hard and he really hates hair metal. And dirty old men and frou-frou drinks.

When he enters the diner, Sandy heads back into the kitchen and he follows her after making sure no one is looking. Alexis is sitting at a bank of computers typing quickly while her eyes dart between different screens. Each one has a feed from a camera Jared has planted either in the loft or at the strip club. Right now, Chad and Jensen are staring out the window talking. On another screen, Jeff is hauling boxes of liquor behind the bar.

"Okay so we've got a new player," Sandy says as she points to the whiteboard hung up across the room.

The whiteboard is where they're working on who's who and how they're related to what. Every day the pictures seem to be rearranged in a different configuration because every new piece of intel leads them in a new direction.

"Yeah, so who is he?"

New guy is kind of stupidly pretty. It turns out his name is Tom. No last name yet. He was spotted by the mole they've got at Chris Kane's place in the lobby. Erica made him for a player, not another hooker. Jensen's not so sure; he'd fit right in Chris' stable.

"We've got to get someone inside that fucking apartment," Alexis gripes.

Jared knows this is directed at him. His job is to convince Chris' boy toy to take him there for an audition. So far, no luck. He's made every excuse he could think of from not having rent money to be concerned for Jensen to flat-out begging.

"I'm working on it," Jared grits out. "You wanna make a go of it?"

"That's enough, children. As butch as Alexis can be, she'll never pass for a gay man, 'kay?"

"Whatever. Does Erica know where Tom went after he left the complex?" Jared asks as he studies the board.

"Steve took him to the Hilton." Sandy taps the photo of Chris' number two. "Dropped him off and came back up. Didn't get out of the car or anything."

"So do we have someone at the Hilton now?"

"That new kid. Harrison." Alexis pulls up video feed of him in the service elevator with a stack of towels.

Jared frowns and then mentally moves the board around, rearranging the players. "Right so are we sure that Chad belongs on this board?"

Sandy has him up above Jensen on the ladder but below Steve. At one point, Alexis was convinced that Chad was behind all of it and moved him to the top. Every time Jared has a crack at the board, he moves him off to the side. He’s not sure about the guy, but Jared thinks he would notice if Chad was running a terrorist network out of their loft.

"God how many fucking times do we have to go over this?" Alexis huffs. "You've seen his record, right?"

"Just because he was discharged from the Marines doesn't mean he's a drug lord. Why would he work at a strip club if he was? Why live in that shithole?" Jared shakes his head. “I know I wouldn’t live there if I had a choice.”

"Are you kidding me?" Sandy lights up with enthusiasm at a chance to explain her own theory again. "It's perfect. No one, not even Chris, probably knows he's behind it all. He's just biding his time and then bam."

Alexis spins in her chair and folds her arms over her chest. "Sandy, c'mon, Jared has a point for once."

"But he has all that money in the bank and then there's his ties back to the Middle East," Sandy argues.

There's no sense in arguing with either of them, so Jared goes back to the board. Under Jensen's name is a long list of contacts, tricks, arrests, shopping habits, trips to rehab, last known addresses and now a foot note.

"Hey, what's this?" Jared interrupts whatever the women were going on about.

“We found out he worked at Jeff’s club years ago,” Alexis answers absently.

Well, that’s interesting.


	2. part two

Jared:  
Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, California, USA  
2009

Jared works the bar so he and Jeff can discuss strategy. Jeff actually isn't an FBI agent and he really does own the strip club, but he used to be in the Marines before his knee got fucked up and he decided to retire, so he's been brought into the mission. Mainly he tells Jared they're wasting their time on Chad, which may be true, but Jeff is only saying it because he'd lose his biggest draw and Chad's mouth on his cock every night.

"He was dishonorably discharged from the Marines for what was it again?" Jared wipes down a section of the counter. "Something about the enemy and the military's euphemism for gay sex?"

Jeff shakes his head. "Fraternization. But if they had enough evidence of that, he'd be down in GitMo." 

"Finding him shacking up with a known member of the Taliban in enemy territory wasn't enough evidence?" Jared murmurs most of that under his breath while he serves up three appletinis and a White Russian. 

"It was unique circumstances," Jeff argues as he takes more martini glasses down. 

"Yeah, yeah. Little Red Riding Hood lost her caravan and had to bunk down with the big, bad wolf." 

They don't get to continue their usual argument until an hour later when the bar finally clears up a bit. By then Jared has served twelve appletinis, twenty bottles of imported beer, three glasses of white wine, four Sex on the Beaches, one Whiskey Sour, seven White Russians, gotten fifty bucks in tips and has been offered three phone numbers, a blow job, and an investment opportunity. Now Chad is on stage doing his thing as Rear Admiral which explains the lack of customers at the bar. 

Jared has to admit that Chad is good at this if nothing else. Every move is perfectly timed and choreographed to the music which happens to be a Rob Zombie song. Not that anyone really listens to the music, not when Chad is crawling on the stage in nothing but his boots, thong and sailor's cap. 

"Anyway, that kid is just too damn nice. You know he used to volunteer at an animal shelter?"

Of course Jared knows that. It's all in Chad's file along with the time he saved a woman from getting mugged and the exact amount he's donated to charity since he filed his first income tax report. "Do you know that Hitler really, really loved his mother?"

"Yeah, yeah. I get your point, but Chad's got a heart of gold, trust me." 

All Jared can do is snort in response to that. Partly because he knows he'll never get through to Jeff even if Chad came in with an AK-47 and started blowing the place apart and partly because Chad is heading their way. He slides behind the bar and grabs a bottle of water before heading to the back. Jared waits a beat and then follows him. 

Like any other agent, Jared's been trained in stealth tactics, but with his height and size, it doesn't always work. Chad whirls around and is seconds away from kicking Jared someplace very painful before Jared can even think to move. 

"Oh." Chad stops just short of kicking him. "Don't sneak around like that, fucker."

"How about don't kick people in the balls?" Jared counters. 

"Listen, you better have your rent when you get home tonight." Chad runs a towel through his hair and then slips on a pair of very loose jeans. "Jensen's going to do something stupid if you don't start paying on time."

"Jensen does stupid shit every day," Jared retorts. 

"He doesn't need to be whoring his ass out for you," Chad snarls as he whips the towel into a laundry basket. "And I don't need to be working double-shifts to cover you either so man the fuck up, Jared, or I'll kick your ass out myself."

Well, Jared thinks, the lost rent money scheme obviously isn't going to work. Jared's theory is that Jensen really does have a heart under all those scars and doesn't want to corrupt an innocent. Sandy's theory is that Jensen doesn't want Jared to steal any clients. Alexis' theory is that Jared is a shitty agent and Jensen has caught on. Alexis is a bitch.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. I will," Jared promises when Chad just keeps glaring at him.

Chad finishes getting dressed and storms out without another word. A minute later, Jared returns to the bar and rethinks his theories while dishing out drinks. Jensen meets Steve and Steve hooks him up with Chris. Chris is often seen with investment banker David Boreanaz. They've got nothing on David other than that he grew up with Sarah Michelle Gellar who is married to Freddie Prinze, Jr. whose mother owns half of the state including the largest supplier of steel to the military. That brings Jared's thoughts back to Chad.

He really doesn't think Chad's behind anything but the guy's still a mystery. On the one hand, there's the side Jeff sees. On the other hand, there's an entire wall of boxes of files regarding his very short military career. Jared's got three boxes just for the transcript of his discharge which was a three-ring circus. Half of it is Chad speaking in some Persian derivative, which took a team of language specialists to decipher because he cried through most of it. Even after all that, no one knows what really went down. Who knows what was lost in translation? 

As far as anyone knows, Chad got separated from his caravan and wound up in a small village. He was assumed KIA since plenty of his fellow Marines were found dead from the same attack. Six months later, an Army convoy comes through thinking the village is deserted. It's not. Chad knocks half the battalion unconscious before any of them realize they're not alone. There's a shoot-out but none of the soldiers can say for sure that Chad is involved. Hours later, they find him sobbing over the body of a suspected terrorist and drag him off. 

Alexis had managed to dig up a medical report saying that Chad had been beaten within an inch of his life while he was held for transport. Jared has been holding onto the name of one of the soldiers involved for awhile. Now he thinks it's time to pay the guy a visit.

But first he has to talk to Jeff about Jensen.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Jensen used to work here?” Jared asks when he comes back behind the bar.

Jeff doesn’t look up from washing glasses. “Because it has nothing to do with anything. It was a long time ago.”

“Anything to do with that guy is relative,” Jared insists. 

“Not this. He was just a dancer.”

Jared frowns. “Was he with Chris back then?”

“Nope.”

As good as Jared is, he’s still not good enough to get Jeff to talk, so he just sighs and heads down the bar to serve up some white wine to a group of drag queens.

 

Jared:  
Cambridge Drive, Arcadia, California, USA  
2009

 

James Lafferty lives out in Arcadia near the racetrack in a little bungalow. The yard is strewn with toys and is very obviously lived in. A pretty brunette answers the door with a baby on her hip and another child tugging on her leg. From the file he knows this Sophia, former Queen of Roses and James' wife of three years. 

"Hi," Jared greets all smiles, flashing his badge. "Is James home?"

"He's out back." Sophia steps back after a second and lets Jared through into the living room. "Just head on through the back door there."

Jared picks his way around overstuffed furniture to the back door. James is in the middle of the backyard trying to put together some sort of swing set. Or a torture device. Jared can't be sure.

"James?" 

The other man puts down his hammer and squints in Jared's direction. "Yes?" 

"My name is Special Agent Jared Padalecki. I'm with the FBI." Jared flashes his badge while James frowns.

"I've got nothing to say to you people." 

"I've heard you're the one that started the beating," Jared says casually as he moves closer. "You knew him from before, didn't you?"

James' mouth opens and closes before settling into a thin line. "Get off my property."

Jared bends down and picks up the instructions for the swing set. "They make these so complicated, don't they? But you love your family, so it's worth the effort. You'd do anything for them, right? Sophia, James Jr. and little Michael. Such a perfect little family."

Silence settles between them while Jared pretends to read the instructions and James glares. Jared doesn't really know what went down over there because no one does, but he's always been fantastic at interrogation. He's convinced some of his targets that he knows everything when really all he knows is minor details. He's gotten them to spill their guts with nothing more than a few carefully chosen words.

"Yeah, I knew him. We were in basic training together." 

"But he wound up in Recon."

"I guess. We weren't close."

"Never went on leave together?"

Something flashes in James' eyes and Jared holds back a smirk. There's something to this backstory, Jared just has to ease it out.

"Not really. He was there with everyone else."

"There being where you met your wife?" 

Tension is running in visible lines up James' neck. He's sweating and keeps licking his lips. Jared only knows they met in North Carolina because of their wedding announcement; he's guessing on everything else. 

"Yes," James grits out. 

"Only," Jared guesses, "Chad was the one she was interested in." 

James laughs bitterly. "He could've had anyone in that room and he picks her. All because I couldn't stop staring at her and everything is a fucking competition with him. Not that she minded having our attention. I was so angry with him. So fucking angry. We ended up fighting out back and then he…" 

Jared waits patiently for the rest of it to come out although he can guess how it all ends up. He's young, but already knows everything in life comes down to sex and money. 

"He kissed me." James laughs in disbelief. "And I let him. I let him do a lot of things until we almost got caught. That's when he went into Recon and I didn't see him again until he was in my custody."

"You beat him because you were afraid he would talk."

"I beat him because he's a traitor." James' voice is full of venom. "He slept with the enemy."

"You know that for sure?" 

"I was trying to be nice. Came in to see him, get his side of the story. All he can talk about is how 'they' murdered the only person he cares about. Kept asking me if I understood. Then he starts bringing up our time on the base and I had to shut him up. I had to."

Without a word, Jared hands back the instructions and leaves through the gate, back out onto the street.

 

Christian:  
Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California, USA  
2009

 

Chris came to California because he had a crush on Steve. Once he made the mistake of telling someone this and they laughed like it was the greatest joke ever. No one believes that he once had ambitions other than being the largest supplier of drugs and sex in Los Angeles County. 

Despite being richer than your average studio exec and more powerful than an army of politicians, Chris isn't exactly happy. Sure he can score tickets to any Lakers game just by flashing a smug smile to any one of his clients reminding them of the time they were looking for underage tail or spent the night snorting blow out of a donkey's ass, and sure, he automatically gets seated in restaurants just by walking in the door because every maitre d' in town has been to one of his parties, but when he goes home at night, all he's got is a cold pillow.

It's his own fault really; he got wrapped in the meaningless shit and let everything else slide. He finally got Steve into his bed and then all he had were excuses for why he was never home at night. At first, it was to hide what he was doing because Steve didn't seem like the hookers and blow type, and then it just became habit. It was easier to provide party favors for Hollywood's elite than fight over bills and why Steve had yet to meet his parents. So they became roommates instead of lovers and then business partners instead of friends.

"I dropped pretty boy off at his hotel," Steve says as he walks back into the penthouse. 

"Great." Chris watches as Steve goes about his nightly routine of putting away weapons and double-checking security. "You charge him for Jenny?"

Steve laughs shortly. "You're kidding me, right?"

"I don't care who he is; that's my merchandise," Chris snaps. 

It's easy to fall into the role of heartless bastard. Easier than watching Steve and wondering how things could've been different. It’s all on him though; he’s the one that brought this filth into Steve’s life. Steve pulls his knife out of his boot and stores it in a drawer in the kitchen. 

"Don't give me that." Steve gives Chris a pointed look before coming over to sit next to him on the couch. "Jenny probably did it to get high. Or because he was high. Boy would probably cut his own dick off if someone said he'd get a bag of blow for it."

"Speaking of which, how much did we get off the Wellings anyway?" 

Steve flips on the game and shrugs. "A couple of kilos. Kid said he could get more whenever his dad flies back up. Diplomatic immunity comes in handy. Shoulda thought of that one yourself."

"Right." Chris folds his arms over his chest and sinks deeper into the couch. "You know you're the brains of the operation, baby."

"Whatever. I'm going to bed."

Chris watches Steve head down the hallway and sighs. It's always business now. The business was entirely accidental, a product of circumstances and now that's all that exists between them. Someday, Chris is afraid there won't even be that.

 

Christian:  
Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009

 

The Welling kid meets him the next day at one of the thousands of Starbucks in the city. Even after all these years, Chris still has trouble ordering off the menu, which seems to be a curious mix of languages, some words possibly even made up by the company, but Tom rattles off a complicated order with half-this and a shot of that without even looking at the thing. He's easygoing in that entitled way. Like what he expects is what he always gets. 

With his height and over-muscled body, he dwarfs the table they park themselves at and Chris feels like there's no escape from the guy. So he sits there quietly while the kid rambles on about how much better the coffee is in Colombia and how his maid makes it just right and it's not anything like the shit they serve here. It's pretentious and boring, this idea that living in a mansion in what's essentially a third-world country somehow makes anyone an authority on that culture. 

"That boy of yours, I want to hire him for a week," Tom says in what seems like the weirdest non-sequitur ever since Chris tuned out sometime between how coffee beans are harvested and now.

"Which one?" Chris snorts into his coffee. He has a whole stable of them. Although he's pretty sure Tom is talking about Jenny.

"Your bodyguard or whatever. Steve, is it?"

"No." It comes out without a thought, just an automatic refusal. Chris narrows his eyes before turning on the charm, sweet as honey. "You can have your pick of any of my other boys though. On the house."

Tom rolls his eyes. "I'm not looking for sex. I want some hired muscle is all. And your boy is good."

Chris mentally goes through his list of contacts as he tries to think of someone up for that task. "I'll have someone at your hotel within the hour."

"Awesome. Thanks, man." Tom flashes a smile that's all teeth and no warmth and then he's gone.

**

Turns out that no one in his extensive list of contacts wants anything to do with Welling even when Chris offers up everything he has, so he starts thinking about which one of his boys could pass for a bodyguard. He's got a couple bodybuilder types, but they're not smart enough to pull off faking being a bodyguard. 

For some reason, he keeps coming back to Jenny, who definitely couldn't pull off walking a straight line most days let alone handling a gun. There's that kid he lives with, though. The one that's a stripper. Or that could've been three roommates ago; Jenny goes through them like tissue paper. 

He calls Jenny's cell and when he finally picks up he sounds all out of breath. Not in the good workout way, but in the just got fucked way, which isn't all that surprising, considering, but there's this undercurrent of something else that he can't place.

"Chris…"

There's some muffled discussion of which Chris can only pick out a few words. Something about breaking the phone if that's what it takes. A few seconds of that and a different voice comes on the line.

"What the fuck do you want?" 

The voice is hard, the words laced with venom. There's an undercurrent of real danger that makes the hair on the back of Chris' neck stand up, but at the same time, he's thinking this is the roommate. The one he was going to ask about.

"You, actually."

A pause while a door slams. "And?"

"You work at the strip club, right?" There's a grunt of ascent, so Chris continues. "I've got a job that'll make you ten times what you make there."

"Bullshit."

"I don't mean selling your ass, son. I mean doing a little muscle work for a couple of weeks, that's all," Chris explains, pouring on the country charm he's all but left behind.

"I don't care what you meant. Don't call here again. Ever. You got that?"

Chris stares at the phone a bit dumbfounded when he gets the dial tone in his ear before he thumbs it off. No one has ever refused him before. Now he's really intrigued.


	3. part three

  
Jensen:  
Cosmo Street, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009  


He's too out of shape to be doing this, but he keeps pushing himself harder. His feet pound the pavement as he weaves between people and cars and each thud echoes in his ears with the beat of his heart. When his legs start to wobble, he stumbles and his palm slaps rough concrete to stop himself from falling. While his vision spins and he pants for breath, he plots his next move. He has to get back to the apartment and get his money somehow. It's not even his money, it's that guy's money and if the guy realizes it's gone before Jensen can replace it, someone's going to get hurt.

"Fuck," Jensen hisses as his muscles burn and sweat drips in his eyes. 

Slowly he pushes off the wall and walks away with his head down. He could have sworn no one had caught up to him, but then he sees Chad out of the corner of his eye, walking beside him. Bastard doesn't even look out of breath. 

"I'm sorry."

It's so quiet that Jensen barely hears it over the ringing in his ears. He stops and turns to look at Chad, letting a stream of annoyed pedestrians loop around them. Chad's eyes are bright like he's holding back tears or something. Jensen really doesn't know what to say because no one in his entire life has sincerely apologized to him for anything.

"I didn't have the right to do that. But I just can't let you…" Chad steps closer and lightly touches Jensen's wrist. "C'mon home, okay?"

Jensen shakes his head. "You don't understand, do you? I've got to get out of here."

"Jensen." Chad squeezes his wrist lightly. "I won't let anyone hurt you."

Hysterical laughter bubbles up in Jensen's throat. This is unbelievable. He closes his eyes and hopes he'll wake up back in his favorite chair in front of his favorite window and none of this will have happened. Including coming out to Los Angeles in the first place.

"Come back with me and we'll figure it out," Chad pleads. His voice sounds raw and broken like if Jensen runs again he'll be devastated. 

Hesitantly, Jensen steps forward and touches Chad's cheek. "Okay, okay."

**

Jensen expects to find Steve waiting for him when they enter the apartment. The last time he stole from a client, that's what happened. Steve knocked him out and when he woke up, some guy was fucking him. And then another and then another. He was covered in sweat and semen and spit when it was all over, delirious and nearly out of his mind with terror. Chris had come in and shot him up with the good stuff, telling him what a good boy he was. Thinking about it now makes him want to puke. 

Only Steve isn't there. 

"We can't stay here long," Jensen warns Chad as he bolts the door behind them. 

They push the couch in front of the door and then snap all the blinds shut until the only light in the room comes from the weak bulb over the sink. Jensen opens the freezer and takes the wad of cash out, setting it on the counter between them. 

"He isn't coming after me because of what you did, Chad. I stole this from a client."

Chad gives a wry smile. "I saw you hide that and wondered what you did to get it. I was hoping you hadn't done something stupid."

"Yeah." Jensen drops his eyes feeling strangely ashamed. 

"I didn't mean it like that." Chad tips his chin back up. "I really didn't."

Jensen leans into the touch despite himself. "I know," he says and means it. Chad is the kindest man he's ever known. 

"Pack up whatever you need and we'll get out of here."

There isn't much that Jensen needs or wants to pack. He doesn't have any sentimental trappings or even much in the way of clothing. So he shoves some shirts and underwear and a toothbrush into a bag along with the cash, and he's ready to go. 

Chad is already in the kitchen with his bag. Instead of his normal shoes, he's wearing what look like the shit-kickers he puts on when he's stripping. He's also got an array of knives on the counter and is in the process of strapping them to his ankle.

"What?" That’s about all Jensen is able to get out. Why does Chad have all of these knives? Does he know how to use them? 

"You ready to go?" Chad pulls his pant leg down over the knives and then looks up. "Don't freak out on me now, Jen."

Jensen is really trying not to freak out but he keeps wondering where all the knives came from and why Chad is strapping them to his body, and how does he know how to do that?

"Listen." Chad grabs his shoulders and forces Jensen to look at him. "I used to be in the Marines, okay? These are for protection. For our protection."

"Our protection," Jensen repeats and nods. 

"I told you I won't let anyone hurt you." Chad kisses him softly as his voice drops down to a whisper. "I won't. I promise."

It seems like Chad is trying to convince himself too. The sincerity of it relaxes Jensen a bit and he kisses Chad back. 

"I trust you, Chad."

Chad nuzzles his cheek. "Thank you."

He doesn't get why Chad would thank him, but Jensen nods anyway. They move the couch back and then Chad gestures for Jensen to stay in the kitchen. While Chad kneels at the door, his ear pressed to it, Jensen gathers up their bags and waits for his signal. 

After what seems like minutes but is probably only seconds, Chad is gesturing for him to come near. He opens the door while Jensen stays out of sight. With the way Chad is moving, Jensen can see the military training now and he tries to imitate it as he follows along the hallway. 

They're almost down the stairs, almost to the back exit when Jared starts coming up. There's no time to trace back, no time to hide the bags. Jensen can feel panic rising in his throat even though he knows Jared and Chris have never even met. Chad shoves Jensen against the wall, hiding their bags between them and kisses him hard. 

"You know there's a perfectly good bedroom in the loft, right?" Jared snorts as he passes them on the stairs.

"Fuck off, Jay," Chad pulls back enough to shout up after him.

Once the door to the loft closes, they pull back all the way.

"That was close," Jensen almost giggles in relief. 

"Let's go." 

Chad grabs his wrist and pulls him to the exit. He opens the door just like upstairs, only this time there's someone out there. Jensen blinks at the petite woman wearing a suit with a gun in her hand. She has her back to them right now, but is going to turn any second. Before she gets a chance, Chad knocks her out and takes the gun. He sweeps the back alley before gesturing for Jensen.

He can't help but look at the body on the ground as he steps over it. She almost looks familiar, but he can't quite place her. There's no time to figure it out though. Chad is guiding him through a maze of streets, the gun barely hidden in the waistband of his jeans, but he's so gentle with every nudge in the right direction. 

When they blend into a crowd of shoppers, Chad puts his arm around Jensen's waist and kisses his temple. His fingers sear into Jensen's side, and for a moment, he forgets everything that led to this moment and just lets himself feel for the first time in years.

  
Jared:  
Cosmo Street, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009  


Tactical maneuvers have never been Jared's forte. He can do them with modest efficiency, but he'd rather interrogate someone any day of the week. That's why he doesn't coordinate them on assignments. That's why he left this one to Sandy and Alexis. They went over exits to the building while he put some new faces up on the board. While he moved pieces around until Chad was off to the side again on the whiteboard, they coordinated with other agents.

They were supposed to have it all under control. All he was supposed to do is cover the window in case Jensen and Chad decided to come back up to the loft. Which of course they didn't because Chad is way smarter than that. 

"I can't fucking believe you lost them." Jared throws a box of Chad's files at the whiteboard. "A goddamn Marine reject and a coke whore and they slip by you?"

Sandy holds an icepack to the back of her head while the rest of the team stare at him like he's lost his mind, which maybe after being undercover for so long, he has. After all, Sandy is in charge here, really not him.

"Murray's a lot more resourceful than we expected," Sandy mutters as she rubs the back of her head.

“He was a Marine!” Jared shouts in disbelief. “Of course he’s resourceful! He probably spent a year living off sand and his own urine or something as part of his training. He probably knows how to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Fuck!” 

A phone rings then. It's not theirs it's Jensen's, the one he left at the loft. Jared gestures for silence before he answers it.

"Hello?"

"Put Jenny on."

"He ain't available, Chris." Alexis is spinning back to her computer to work her magic before Jared even gets the full sentence out. "Can I take a message?"

"You the one that hung up on me earlier?"

He makes a split-second decision. "Yeah. So?"

"I told you, I've got a job for you. Meet me in the lobby of the Hilton. Thirty minutes."

Jared disconnects the call and smiles. Finally, things on this clusterfuck of a mission are starting to go his way.

  
Jared:  
Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009  


Twenty-five minutes later, Jared is sitting on a couch in the lobby of the Hilton. He's wearing jeans and a wife-beater with cowboy boots. There's a comm. link in his watch and knives strapped to each ankle not to mention a well-placed bug behind his ear. He feels good about this, prepared this time. This is where he's going to nail Chris to the wall.

Chris arrives ten minutes late without Steve. Instead, Jared spots some flunky pretending to read the paper while leaning against a potted plant outside. Feigning boredom, Jared picks at his nails and slumps farther in his seat. 

"You the boy on the phone?" 

Jared looks up at Chris through the fringe of his bangs. "Depends on who's asking, man."

"Do you want this job or not? Get up, boy."

With that, Chris starts walking away like he expects Jared to follow. Jared smirks and catches up to him in two long strides. 

"So what's this gig pay, anyway? I mean, if someone tries to shoot him or something, am I expected to take the bullet? Because I'm gonna expect a lot more cash if that's the case," Jared rambles as they approach the elevator, trying to get a gauge on what Chris is setting up here. 

The elevator arrives and they let a woman with two small children exit before getting in. Chris swipes a card for access to the penthouse and then leans against one of the walls. His eyes are hard and appraising like he's sizing up a horse or a prize dog. 

"Here's the deal. I pay you 10k. You stick to this kid like glue. I don't want him near my place. Got that? So if you gotta distract him with your pretty ass, you go on right ahead." Chris gives him a wolfish grin. "Won't even take my cut."

Jared snorts. "You're paying me to babysit. Who the fuck is this guy then?"

"Don't matter." The elevator dings and they step into the hallway. "Just do as I say."

A tall man with dark hair is lounging on a couch at the end of the hallway. Or rather he's lounging and a girl is bouncing up and down on his dick like he's a pony even though he doesn't seem to really be affected by it at all. In fact, he stands up when they approach, knocking the girl to the floor. 

"Chris!"

Even though the guy is naked, cock still at full-attention, he pulls Chris into a hug. The look on Chris' face makes Jared want to burst into laughter, but instead he sweeps the room looking for entrances and exits. French doors probably leading to a balcony, the door he entered, probably another set of doors in the bedroom area.

"One bodyguard as promised, Tom." Chris pushes Tom away and gestures at Jared. "Work for you?"

Tom gives Jared an appraising look and then grins. "Outdid yourself, even."

"Just hold up your end of the bargain."

"Of course."

One last nod and then Chris is gone. Jared takes in the coke on the coffee table and the girl pouting on the couch. "Well?"

"Oh, yeah." Tom turns slips on a pair of loose sweatpants then turns on the charm to the girl. "Hey, sweetheart, you wanna go shopping or something?"

She huffs and stomps off into the bedroom. Tom shrugs and sits on the couch, gesturing for Jared to follow him. He really, really hopes he doesn’t wind up in the wet spot.

"I was really hoping for Steve," Tom sighs. "But I guess you'll do."

"What exactly is that?" Jared tilts his head. "Chris didn't say much."

"After the girl leaves, okay?" 

Jared nods and Tom flips on the TV to a basketball game. He's got it up so loud that Jared can barely hear himself think. The girl saunters out a few minutes later and Tom shoves a roll of bills in her hand before escorting her out the door. After she's gone, Tom shuts all the blinds, turns the TV up even further and then gestures for Jared to follow him into the bathroom.

"Here's the thing," Tom says once the door is shut. "I need to get back into Chris' penthouse."

"Yeah and how does that involve me?" Jared leans back against the sink. "Not like I've got the key."

"That’s why I was hoping for Steve," Tom sighs. "And I know you're Chris', boy but I'll give you whatever you want if you get me in there."

Incriminating evidence would be nice, Jared thinks. "That's it? Get you in there? Nothing else?"

"Well, I also need to find this whore. Name's Jenny."

"What's she got to do with anything?" 

"He," Tom corrects. "And he stole half a million dollars from me." 

Pieces slide together in Jared's head: Chris' nickname for Jensen, Jensen and Chad on the stairs, them on the run together. Shit. 

"Yeah and what's half a mil to someone like you?" Jared snorts. 

"Nothing, but it isn't mine, not really. Steve paid me in advance for a delivery. A delivery I didn't make, but Steve lied to Chris and said I did." Tom paces back and forth. "Why am I even telling you this? I'm such an idiot."

Jared gives his harmless puppy smile. "No worries. I mean, you're the boss now, huh?"

"Right." Tom gives a decisive nod. "Steve is going to double-cross Chris. But there isn't anything to double-cross him with 'cause I don't have the shipment. So I've got to warn him."

"What's this delivery anyway?" Jared asks all casual. 

"Don't play dumb, man. You've gotta know who I am."

"Sorry, dude." 

"My dad is General Welling. You know? The U.S. Diplomat to Colombia?" 

"Oh." Jared resists the urge to kick himself. How did they not catch this? "Blow."

"So we gotta warn him, see?" Tom looks at Jared with his own set of puppy eyes. 

"Yeah, I got it. No problem." 

Despite his mistake, things are looking up.

  
Chad:  
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009  


After a few minutes of blending with the crowd, Chad pulls Jensen into an internet café. He logs on and buys bus and train tickets for them to several different cities using his credit card. For anyone else, it would be a rookie mistake to use something traceable, but Chad is no rookie. While they waste their time trying to search ten different buses and three trains, he and Jensen will be long gone.

Jensen is sitting next to him, his knee bouncing while he bites his lip and glances around like he expects Chris to jump out and grab him any second. Chad places his hand on his leg to calm him down and listens to Jensen take a deep breath. 

"Where are we going?" Jensen asks quietly while Chad reserves tickets to Mobile, Alabama and Fort Wayne, Indiana.

"Do you trust me?" Chad turns to look at Jensen as he blindly clicks to book the tickets. 

"Yeah." Jensen nods. "Yeah, I do."

"Then you're just going to have to follow me and not ask questions. Don't know who's listening. Got it?"

"Got it."

Five minutes later they're out the door and blending in again. Chad watches everyone, sees everything. He was trained by the best, and even though he hasn't used this skill set in awhile, it's all reflex, like riding a bike. 

Once they're far enough away from the crowd, Chad starts looking for older vehicles, ones without the fancy computer shit and locks. He finds a '67 Chevy Impala and quickly pulls out an old wire hanger from his bag. In less than ten seconds he's in the car and has it hot-wired. 

"Get in already," Chad barks at Jensen when he just stands there on the curb staring. 

Jensen slides into the passenger seat and throws his bag into the back. "There's a lot I don't know about you, huh?"

It's not really a question, but Chad nods as he puts the car in gear and heads towards the highway. "I've got a past like anyone else."

Nothing but silence to that, which is when Chad notices Jensen has fallen asleep against the window. He smiles at the image and keeps driving and planning. They're going to have to dump this car before they cross any state lines. Maybe even before that. Might be best to switch plates once they cross the county line even. Best to stick to the back roads, but don't stop in any towns small enough that strangers would stick out. Yet they've got to get somewhere where no one is going to know them or care about why they're there. 

Vegas, Chad thinks. The capitol city of anonymous faces.

  
Chad:  
Tropicana Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA  
2009  


Ten hours, three car switches and a dye job later, they hit the strip. Jensen's hair is now black, which makes his green eyes stand out even more and Chad's shaved his head. Somewhere near the border they bought new clothes. Chad insisted on suits so they'd look like businessmen at some conference; he also insisted they keep their old clothes. Leaving anything behind like that is just asking for someone to find it and get on their trail.

They check into a no-tell motel away from the action after dumping the car in front of the Bellagio. No need for IDs or credit cards to stay in some shithole with stains on the carpet. 

"Get some rest," Chad says gently when Jensen just stands there looking all jittery. 

"I can't. I mean, I'm dying. I need…" 

Jensen is shaking and sweating as he paces between the two beds. Chad had been ignoring the withdrawal signs in favor of getting them to safety. Now he's going to have to do something. 

"You don't need it, Jen." Chad touches his shoulder lightly. "You can do this."

"I didn't want to be like this." Jensen lets out a sob and buries his face against Chad's neck. "This isn't the first time I stole from a client. I got clean once and I was gonna use the money I took to get back home to my folks. But Chris found out and…"

Chad leads Jensen to the bed to sit down. He's pale except for the high, feverish spots on his cheeks. Gently, Chad strokes the back of his neck, encouraging him to continue. 

"He sent Steve to get me. Guess the client wanted to teach me a lesson so he raped me. Him and his friends for hours." Jensen looks away, seemingly ashamed. "Chris shot me up after that and I just kept using 'cause it was better than thinking about how fucked up my life had become. I mean, I know that makes no sense."

"No, I understand," Chad says quietly. 

He wants to hunt them all down and kill them one by one, just like Afghanistan, but he doesn't say that to Jensen. Instead, he leads him to lie down on the bed and holds him through the shakes.

  
Chad:  
Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan  
2003  


He's standing in the poppy field again but this time someone is beside him. The guy can't be more than Chad's age but he's got hard lines on his face, making him look so much older. His hair is dark but his eyes are light green, the color of jade, and his skin is pale. Chad walks beside him as he talks about his village in halting Dari; his first language must be something else, Pashto, probably.

Almost everyone had fled right after the war began, seeking refuge in northern Pakistan, just over the border. His family stayed behind to care for the elders but with a lack of supplies, most died within a few months. Now it's just him and his grandmother who is in mourning for her husband. He fears the well will dry up if it doesn't rain soon. There's a stream further south but he can't leave his grandmother to gather water. Thieves come back in the night and steal whatever they can find even gold from the mosque. 

Chad asks how far south, how long would it take to get there, and the guy looks surprised but says it will take at least a day to get there and then come back. After a moment to think about it, Chad asks if there's something he can use to carry the water. That's when he finally gets the guy's name: Firdaus. 

Firdaus loans him a set of clothes and straps two jugs onto his back. He gives the directions, drawing them in the dirt with his finger, and Chad memorizes the picture and hopes for the best. 

For the first few miles, he weaves his way through poppies and then there's nothing but evergreens and rocks until he reaches a small valley. It's absolutely gorgeous. Wild vines snake through lush herbage laced with junipers and roses. He follows a dirt path and the whisper of water over rocks until he reaches the stream. The water is clear and when he dips his palms in to drink, it's cold and crisp. 

It's hard work carrying the filled jugs back up the valley to the village, but he doesn't mind it; it's no worse than carrying his pack and a gun. At least this weight will go toward something good. His fingertips graze the poppies as he walks, feeling their silky petals. Since day one in Recon, his job has been to find these fields, slash and burn them, and kill any villagers that try to stop him. The Colonel told him it was important; that it would keep the brothers coming behind him safe. For the most part, he works alone or in a small team, but this time he was wanted on another mission. 

The Colonel came personally to give him the orders, which came directly from the General himself along with notification that he'd been awarded a Silver Star. Chad has aspirations beyond Second Lieutenant and he accepts the special orders with a salute and a private oorah. He really should've read those orders before accepting anything. 

He shakes all that off as he approaches the village. By the time he's up into the small house he's staying in, he's back into clear headspace. When he sets the water down in the kitchen, Firdaus' grandmother is so thankful that Chad actually feels like a decent human being for the first time since he was shipped out.

  
Chad:  
Tropicana Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA  
2009  


Chad wakes up twelve hours later to find Jensen puking into the toilet. He stumbles into the small bathroom and wets a washcloth to press against Jensen's neck. While Jensen dry heaves, he pats his back in a soothing motion and then doesn't bother to clean up once he's done. Instead he guides him back to bed and tucks him in, setting the trash can next to him.

For the next three hours, Chad sits in front of the TV and thinks about what to do next. He figures it will take a few more days for Jensen to get through withdrawal and they can't risk traveling with him like this. Even though he doesn't want to leave Jensen here alone, he's going to have to go out and get supplies. Food, first aid materials, a cheap untraceable cell phone and fake IDs along with some camping equipment. If he can buy some old junker on the cheap, they can stick to back roads and campgrounds. They'll be much harder to find if they're constantly moving. 

"Jensen," Chad says softly, hoping he can wake him without jostling him. 

"Hmm?" Jensen barely cracks one eye open but smiles when he sees Chad.

"I've gotta get supplies, okay?" He waits for Jensen to nod. "Don't go anywhere. Don't open the door for anyone."

Jensen nods again. "I won't, I promise."

Chad kisses Jensen's forehead, strokes his cheek softly and then reluctantly heads out the door.

**

The IDs will be the hardest to get, so Chad works on those first. He plays it cooler than cool, tip-toeing around like crazy trying to get across his needs without raising suspicion. The last thing he needs is to wind up in jail because he said the wrong thing to an undercover cop. 

Finally he finds a guy who mainly does IDs for college kids, but he's good. Really good. Two hours later, he and Jensen are Nick Jones and Jake Gray who hail from Boston, Massachusetts. Chad paid extra for papers to go with the IDs; a whole fake history of their lives. He pays even more to keep the guy quiet. 

He brings back turkey sandwiches along with the IDs and supplies. Jensen is sitting up in bed with glazed eyes focused on the TV. A rerun of some old cop show is playing with the volume way too loud. Chad goes to turn it down, but Jensen shakes his head and gestures Chad closer.

"They're gonna find us. They can hear us." 

Jensen looks terrified, but Chad knows it's just a delusion from the DTs. So he kisses the corner of Jensen's mouth and runs his fingers over the back of his neck. 

"I won't let them hurt you."

The vulnerable look Jensen gives him as he pulls Chad closer is just another reminder of Afghanistan he doesn't need, but he goes with it and lets Jensen's heartbeat soothe him into sleep.

  
Chad:  
Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan  
2003  


Firdaus tells him that the nearest village is so far away that it takes days to get there. They're actually much closer to Pakistan but Chad can't head that way, not yet. He's got no sat-comm and no gun; just his knife collection. Technically, he's supposed to be about a hundred miles south of here because that's where his target was last seen.

His target. Chad sighs and leans his head against the wall. What an impersonal way to describe someone he actually knows on a personal level, but he supposes that's the point. He can't let his emotions get in the way of duty.

"There is a man," Firdaus says haltingly. "An American, like you, who comes here sometimes with the thieves."

"Do you know his name?" 

"No. He speaks in Arabic and I think he is hiding something in the mosque," Firdaus answers.

It doesn't take long for Chad to find exactly what the other American is hiding. The marble flooring is loose in some places and Chad is able to pry it up with his bayonet to find some kind of tunnel beneath. When he silently jumps down into it, he encounters an underground bunker. The doors are steel and locked, but not with any kind of fancy technology. 

He's able to pick one of the locks with his knives and shoves the door open to find wooden crates stacked-up against the far wall. Really, he doesn't have to open them to know what's inside, but he does anyway. Weapons, hundreds of them, Military-issue, and now Chad really understands what happened to the caravan he was in and why he was sent to spy on his former lover.

One of their own is a traitor.


	4. part four

  
Alexis:  
Cosmo Street, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009  


The only reason Alexis is in the FBI is because she got caught hacking into an IRS database. All she really wanted to do was destroy her asshole ex-boyfriend's credit by making it look like he owed thousands of dollars in back taxes. It's not like she was hacking in to destroy the world; just Milo Ventimiglia, the cheating bastard. So it was either work for them or wind up in prison; it really wasn’t much of a choice.

Mostly she sits in what her fellow tech, Jessica Alba, refers to as ‘the bat cave’ and monitors suspected terrorists’ activities. There’s a never-ending list of these people so it’s not like she and Jess aren’t the only ones doing it but they get the big fish. So she can list off every major credit card purchase every member of Christian Kane’s family has made ever. She can follow his flunky, Steve, via traffic cameras. Pretty much, she’s a genius when it comes to anything involving surveillance or computers. 

But she wants out of the bat cave. The real glory is running operations like Sandy and Jared. So when Jared totally fucks up his undercover gig and then Sandy fucks up a simple grab, she starts working her magic. 

Chad and Jensen left on foot. Sure there were the bus and train tickets, but those are clear dead-ends. So she starts looking for stolen car reports within 20 miles of the loft, and then narrows those down to cars without anti-theft devices, leaving her with five cars. Using the license plates, she tracks them through traffic cameras. The 1992 Honda Civic with the Jersey plates is sitting outside a skate park; obviously a couple of joyriders. Next three cars, all Mustangs, are found in a chop shop by the police. That leaves the 1967 Chevy Impala. 

She’s able to follow that car out of the city, but then she loses it. Chad is really good. But she’s better. She looks for stolen license plates and finds a set off a car registered to the state of Nevada. Those plates wind up on a truck heading south to Arizona. The truck’s owner obviously didn’t report his plates missing, but she uses the make and model to track down the real plates. Through image searching she catches them on a car sitting at valet parking at the Bellagio. 

Very smart. Of course, that’s where she really loses them. No activity that can be traced. It’s like they disappeared. 

“Sandy.” She smiles at her fellow agent. “We’re going to Vegas.”

  
Jensen:  
Tropicana Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA  
2009  


When Jensen finally stops shaking and vomiting and seeing things, he stumbles into the bathroom and promptly starts laughing at his reflection in the mirror. His hair is black and his week's worth of beard is kind of blondish-red and his skin is so pale that his freckles stand out like someone drew them on with a marker. Plus his lips are cracked, there are shadows under his eyes, and he's got crusty stuff in the corners of his mouth.

"I couldn't turn a trick unless the guy was blind," he mutters to himself ruefully before splashing water on his face. 

There's a new toothbrush on the counter so he uses that along with a cheap tube of toothpaste because his mouth tastes like bile and he's got fuzzy shit on his teeth. His clothes stink so he shucks those off next and steps in the shower. The water is only lukewarm and the soap smells almost anti-septic, but he takes his time cleaning every last trace of his old life off of him. 

As he's drying himself off, Chad comes back, hovering just past the doorway with a worried frown. Jensen gives him a small, shy smile and watches the tension in Chad's shoulders drain away. This is his white knight and Jensen can't help but feel grateful and giddy all at once. 

"Hi." Jensen licks his lips. "Do you have some clothes I can wear? Those are kind of gross."

Chad laughs. "No kidding."

He goes to the battered dresser and pulls out clean boxers, a plain t-shirt and jeans. Jensen takes them all gratefully and quickly puts them on. He feels like a new person now that he's clean. 

Out in the room, Chad's got breakfast laid out on a rickety table. His stomach growls at the sight, loud enough for Chad to hear. He pats the seat next to him with a smile before handing him a plate.

"I was hoping you'd want to eat. Haven't eaten much at all this past week."

"Don't remember much at all from this past week," Jensen confesses through a mouthful of eggs.

"That's a good thing." Chad pats his shoulder and then clears his throat. "You looked like you were in a lot of pain and I don't know that I helped much."

Jensen turns and nuzzles Chad's neck. "I do remember you holding me."

Chad gently pushes Jensen back a bit. "You know you don't have to… repay me."

"You're a good guy, Chad." 

He leans in again, kisses Chad on the mouth this time, fingers tangling into his shirt so he won't get pushed away again. They kiss almost chastely at first, but then Chad whimpers deep in his throat and drags Jensen into his lap. His hands are warm and comforting. Jensen just wants to stay there forever, protected and loved. 

"Jen," Chad whispers against his lips. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't," Jensen promises.

"You don't even know me." Chad reaches for a piece of waffle and feeds it to Jensen. 

He accepts the food and then shrugs. "We've all got our secrets."

**

After breakfast, Jensen goes back into the bathroom with a bottle of hair dye. He puts on plastic gloves and combs the stuff through his hair and beard. Really, he wants to shave and cut his hair, but he knows he needs to look nothing like his former self. Not just because he's not all that enamored with that guy, but because Chad really knows his shit. It kind of scares him sometimes. 

An hour later, they’re out the door and back on the road. This time it’s a rust-bucket of an SUV Chad got for cheap at a used car lot. He makes them walk ten blocks to get to the place even though there was one down the block. No plates on the thing, but Chad stops outside of Ash Springs to steal a set. 

When Jensen asks where they’re going, Chad just says, “North.”

Chad’s the only person Jensen’s trusted in years, but he can’t just accept that. “Canada?”

“No, Montana.” Chad touches his leg. “Then east to Chicago.”

Jensen covers Chad’s hand to keep it there. “What’s in Chicago?”

“Someone who owes me a favor.”

  
Jensen:  
Grave Creek, Idaho, USA  
2009  


They end up camping near the Blackfoot River in the Grave Creek area. It’s deserted, probably because there are no modern facilities at all. In fact, they didn’t even require registration to enter. Jensen is completely useless at setting up tents or anything else so he just sits on the tailgate and watches Chad do it all.

Every move Chad makes is efficient yet graceful. Jensen pulls one of his legs up to his chest and rests his chin on his knee, still a bit dazed by all of this. A few short days ago, he was high out of his mind while some rich boy fucked him; a few short weeks ago he spent a weekend on a yacht letting a man old enough to be his grandfather spank him while he bounced up and down on his cock and called him ‘daddy;’ not more than a month ago, he was in the hospital with a fractured wrist after some trick got a bit too rough, and about six months ago, he got tested for HIV and never opened the results. About a year ago is the last time he tried to get clean and other than the record contract years before that, everything else is kind of fuzzy. His parents are more like an image in his mind rather than actual people. 

The lack of a real identity has never bothered him until now.

Chad waves him over from where he’s stacking wood into a pile so he shoves all that depressing shit away and wanders over. He can’t help but notice the way the muscles in Chad’s forearms jump as he throws another log onto the pile. The wife beater he’s wearing doesn’t hide anything and Jensen wants to lick the trail of sweat that’s making its way from his temple down his neck to pool into his collarbone. 

“I’ve got everything setup if you want to get some sleep.” Chad gestures back toward the tent. “Just gonna get this fire going and then I’ll join you.”

“I could help.” Jensen toes the dirt with his sneaker. He likes how Chad makes him feel protected and safe, but he doesn’t want to be a burden. “I mean, I don’t know how do build a fire but…”

“I could teach you.” Chad touches his fingers. “If you want.”

Jensen nods and Chad teaches him how to stack the wood just right, about how it needs to be dry and the best way to light it. When the wood starts to kindle, Jensen grins so wide and then starts to laugh a bit out of pure joy. Chad cups his face and kisses him lightly. 

“I’m proud of you, you know,” he says softly and Jensen has to duck his head to blush. “Let’s go to bed, yeah?”

He lets Chad lead him into the tent, expecting something to happen. No one is this nice for free. But Chad just wraps him in blankets and then falls into a deep sleep. Jensen can’t help but kiss his cheek before he does the same.

  
Sandra:  
Cosmo Street, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009  


This whole mission has Sandy at her wit's end. She was given strict orders before being sent here: find who’s really running Kane’s operation and take them down. There was no mention in her briefing of a monkey wrench named Chad Michael Murray or that Jared prefers going rogue to following orders.

Now her head hurts from more than just Chad’s hit. Sure, Alexis thinks she’s tracked Chad and Jensen as far as Vegas, but now she’s finally got Jared on the inside on the Kane operation. It’s time to make a decision here, but she feels woefully underqualified to do it. 

It takes a couple of hours, but she finally gets Director Beaver on the comm. link. As usual, he looks resigned, like all he’s ever gotten in his life is bad news. She stands up a bit straighter and resists the urge to wipe her hands on the sides of her skirt out of nervousness. 

“Sir, we have a bit of a situation here,” she begins, hoping to ease into it.

“Don’t pussyfoot around with me, Supervisory Special Agent McCoy. Get to the point.”

Sandy sighs internally. “Yes, sir. Special Agent Padalecki has accomplished part of his objective; he’s secured a position with the Kanes. However, Murray and Ackles have fled. We are still not clear on their roles in this network and would like permission to pursue. Special Agent Bledel sent you their last known coordinates.” 

Beaver frowns. “Permission granted. You stay in Los Angeles. Special Agents Weatherly and Alba will check in with you once they have reached the coordinates.”

The comm. link shuts off abruptly, not that she expected anything else.

  
Steve:  
Wilshire Boulevard, Hollywood, California, USA  
2009  


Nothing has ever gone the way he’s wanted it to with Chris, so it’s no real surprise that his bid to get the fuck out of the business has gone awry too.

The Welling kid has turned out to be completely useless and now he’s got the feds on his tail. Chris may be completely oblivious, but Steve knows that Jared kid is some kind of agent. It’s no accident that Jenny’s rent went up and suddenly he needed another roommate while at the same time the landlord suddenly had enough money to buy a new BMW. 

He thinks maybe he could make a deal with the fed and get out. Witness protection or something. Except that selling Chris out like that just feels wrong. Money is one thing, but prison is more than certainly another. Unless he gets them both out because he knows Chris answers to someone and the feds would probably be more than happy to take that fucker over them. 

“Steve?” 

With a sigh, Steve opens his bedroom door to let Chris in. He honestly can’t remember the last time Chris has been in his room.

“This whole Welling deal ain’t sittin’ right with me,” Chris says as he brushes past Steve into the room. 

“How’s that?”

Steve sits on the edge of the bed and watches Chris pace back and forth, his boots clicking on the hardwood floor. Even after all these years in LA, Chris still dresses like they’re back in Texas. 

“Just a feelin’.” Chris sits heavily on the bed next to Steve. “Where did we go wrong?”

“Well, buyin’ the horse without checkin’ its teeth was probably the start.”

Chris snorts. “Not that. I mean us.”

“There hasn’t been an us in a long time,” Steve mutters. “What does that have to do with anything anyway?” 

“Forget it.” Chris stands up and heads to the door. “Just get us out of this deal.”

The door closes with a soft click and Steve falls back against the pillows. No, he does remember the last time Chris was in here. The night after Steve moved his stuff into this room Chris came in unannounced and begged him to come back. Of course they came to blows over it and then worked the rest of their frustrations with each other out on the mattress. But if Steve’s learned anything in this business, it’s that sex doesn’t solve a fucking thing.

  
Steve:  
Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009  


At the Hilton, he finds Tom in bed with the fed. Not literally, they’re actually sitting on the couch watching the game, but it’s bad enough. Of course, Steve isn’t supposed to know that this kid is a fed so he plays it cool.

“Got a minute?” Steve inclines his head toward the bedroom and doesn’t wait to see if Tom follows. 

A beat later and Tom is hovering in the doorway looking all nervous. Steve knows this whole deal is fucked and has been fucked for a long time, but this just seals the deal. Silver spoon-fed kids like Welling don’t get nervous over anything because they know mommy or daddy will fix it, but this is something no amount of parental influence or affluence is going to change. 

“Lost the money, huh?”

It’s not really a question, but Tom nods anyway. “It was that whore.”

Steve smirks. “Got you all good and distracted? Jenny’s good at that if nothing else.”

“I still don’t know how he did it.” Tom frowns and shakes his head in disbelief.

“You ain’t the first to be swindled by that boy and you sure as hell won’t be the last.” Steve walks over to the closet and pulls open the doors to find the safe. “You know he stole nearly a quarter of a million from the Governor?”

Tom shakes his head mutely while Steve inspects the safe. There’s a thin trace of powder between the keys on the pad. He shakes his head in amazement. 

“Chris was pretty hard on him. The Governor is one of our biggest clients. I guess getting gang raped wasn’t the best form of punishment for someone like Jenny, though.”

Steve turns around and points at the safe. “He dusted the keys to get the code. He’s smarter than any of us have ever given him credit for. You look at him and think, pretty. You think, dumb junkie. You’re not the first to get fooled.” 

“Oh.” Tom scratches the back of his neck. “Now what?”

“Now I fix this clusterfuck.”

He pulls out his gun and aims it at Tom’s head. That’s when the fed busts in, of course, with his own gun drawn. 

“FBI. Put the weapon down.” 

“Knew you had to be a fed.” Steve drops his weapon and puts his hands behind his head without being asked. 

While Jared reads him his rights and cuffs him, Tom just stands there like he can’t believe this is happening. Jared’s calling for back-up and Tom doesn’t even resist arrest. As they’re lead into a van to be taken for holding, for the first time in a long time, Steve feels free.

  
Jessica:  
FBI Field Office, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA  
2009  


She finally makes it out of the bat cave and all she gets is a one-way trip to Vegas with Special Agent Weatherly. The guy is a total creep who always hits on her at the coffee station. Why couldn’t she be sent to LA like Alexis? Padalecki is an arrogant asshole, but at least he’s into dick.

At the field office, she unpacks her laptop and hooks it into the network. These guys on the run have probably a couple of days ahead of them and wasting time isn’t an option. As soon as she’s up and running, Alexis is messaging her with all the intel. She runs with it and uses her super-gui skills to run down every car sale made within the timeframe because this Murray guy is smart, but he’s going to stick with his transportation mode of choice, like an idiot.

“Okay, so, I think he’s driving a Ford Explorer now.” She prints out the details and passes them to Weatherly. “Guy paid in cash under the name Nick Jones, then took off without waiting for plates or anything.”

“This guy wouldn’t be that stupid,” Weatherly comments uselessly. 

“No it’s genius. See ‘cause there’s no plate to track and you know there’s like a gazillion ’03 Ford Explorers. He probably stole plates again outside of Vegas.”

“So reports of stolen plates?” Weatherly prompts while leaning over her shoulder.

She nudges him away. “Already on it. Geez.”

Finally she tracks down a missing set of Nevada plates and starts working her magic to find them on traffic cams, but no-go. No traffic cams, no toll plaza records, no nothing. So he stuck to the back roads. She starts searching for the alias all over the place and comes up with nothing. It’s like the guy disappeared off the face of the earth. 

“He can’t be that good,” she says to Alexis over the video link. 

“Have you seen his files? No one is as good as this guy,” Alexis snorts.

“Fuck that noise. He’s not fucking James Bond.”

Alexis grins. “I don’t think James Bond is twinky enough to be his type.”

A file pops up on her screen and she skims through it without even looking at the picture, but when she does, she can’t help but freeze. “Holy motherfucking shit.”

“What?” Alexis is obviously typing a mile a minute trying to see what Jessica is seeing. 

“I know this guy.”

“How can you know this guy? You never leave DC and he doesn’t exactly run in your social circles.”

“Shut up,” Jessica huffs. “Only the cool kids play WoW. Besides, I know him from before DC.”

“Would you just come out with it already?” Alexis demands, leaning so far into her vid camera that Jessica can count each hair in her eyebrows.

“He’s a cat burglar. Or he was one. He ran in my crew. I mean, I was just an apprentice back then working the security angle, but he was there. Dude was crazy flexible. He’d take razor wire and string it all over the damn place and flip through it like it was nothing. I mean, he could—“

“I got it,” Alexis interrupts. “But the first time he ever shows up on our radar is only a couple of years ago.”

“Yeah, see, Jensen retired. I mean, I didn’t know that was his name back then. But he just up and splits one day. I thought Charisma was going to flip her lid when she found out.” 

“The chick from forensic accounting?” Alexis wrinkles her nose. “Who never follows the dress code?”

“Duh.” Jessica rolls her eyes. “You think you’re the only one that works for the Man instead of going to prison?”

“Whatever. We’ve got to find out what happened between then and the record deal.”

Jessica nods. “I’m on it. Peace out.”

She clicks off before she can hear Alexis’ annoyed grunt.

  
Chad:  
Utah Avenue, Butte, Montana, USA  
2009  


They manage to make it into Butte the next day. The place is big enough that they can blend in, but small enough that they don’t have to worry about surveillance on every street corner. It helps that he makes Jensen change into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt; can’t have him wandering around with all those track marks showing. With his beard and the flannel shirt and boots, he looks like any other guy in this city. Chad dresses similar, but keeps a cowboy hat low on his head so his face is always in shadow.

Now that they’re out of immediate danger, Chad isn’t sure how to plan his next move. Sure he’s got buddies who owe him favors, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to help Jensen too. Not to mention that the nearest one of them is all the way in Chicago.

Once they’re seated inside a diner, Chad leans over the table and stares right into Jensen’s eyes. “Who are you really?”

Jensen looks away, a sure sign he’s about to lie. Chad shakes his head and sits back, snapping open his menu.

“I can’t help you much more than this if I don’t know,” Chad continues. “There’s no way this guy you stole from was just keeping that much money in a drawer next to the lube.”

“Before I came to LA, I met this guy, Michael Rosenbaum and I signed a record contract with him. Or at least I think I did.” 

He tugs on Chad’s menu to pull it down. That’s when the waitress comes back. They quickly order and when she walks away, Chad raises his eyebrow to get Jensen to continue.

“But I don’t remember before that. I mean, I do, but only some of it. Like my parents. I remember them. But I don’t remember if I was in college before I went with him to LA. I don’t remember where I went to high school.”

Chad tilts his head. “You’re saying you have amnesia?”

“I’m saying I just don’t know.” Jensen twists his napkin between his fingers. “Maybe it’s all the drugs; made my memory like Swiss cheese.”

“Tell me how you stole the money.” Chad touches Jensen’s hands. “Could be a clue.”

“It was weird. The guy, Tom, he fucked me at Chris’ place and then said if I wanted to earn some extra cash, I should come by his hotel room later. So he’s fucking me and my view is basically of the open closet. There’s a safe in there and I think ‘fine-grain powder’ completely out of nowhere.” 

He pauses to take a sip of the water the waitress brought by and then frowns like he’s concentrating really hard.

“Tom is one of those guys who just passes out dead to the world after sex. Usually I would just go clean-up and leave, but in the bathroom, I see this really expensive baby powder stuff. Next thing I know, I’m blowing a handful of it toward the keypad and I can make out fingerprints on four of the keys. It’s like I can see the possibilities in my head and then I’m punching one of them in. The safe clicks open and there’s all this money. So I took it and ran.”

Jensen falls silent as the waitress brings them their entrees. Chad pokes at his eggs and goes over the possibilities for Jensen’s previous life in his head. Military, government spook, guy who got in a car accident and hit his head, side effect of the drugs, could be any number of things that would cause amnesia. 

“Anything else strange?” Chad takes a sip of coffee. “Things you should remember? Things you do remember that seem out of place?”

“I don’t know. I mean, how do you know what you’re supposed to know? Or not know?” He blows out a frustrated breath. “I never really stopped to think about it until last night.”

“The last time you got clean, how long did it last?” 

“Not long.” Jensen ducks his head and moves his hash browns to the side of his plate. “Wasn’t exactly strong enough to do it on my own. Can’t even really say that I was clean since I used other drugs still.”

“I think the reason you never thought about it before is because you couldn’t.”

“Huh?” Jensen finally looks up and furrows his brow.

“Someone didn’t want you to remember, Jensen.” Chad touches Jensen’s wrist. “It’s the only explanation. Whether the drugs kept you from remembering on their own or something was in them to make you forget or something else entirely, I don’t know.”

“Holy shit,” Jensen whispers.

His fork clatters against his plate as he drops it, and Chad’s afraid for a second that he’s going to pass out. Quickly Chad reaches for his wallet and drops some bills on the table before dragging Jensen out the door. 

As if this wasn’t complicated enough already.


	5. part five

  
Chad:  
Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan  
2003  


It's been a month and no one has stopped by the village. Chad is patient, though. He's inventoried the whole tunnel and has found more than enough guns, explosives and gold to destroy a small city. The small city in mind is apparently Hollywood, which according to the traitor, is the epicenter of greed and sin. Chad really would've thought Vegas fit that bill.

There's shipping manifestos in one of the boxes along with blueprints and some notes written in Arabic. The plan is just in the beginning stages and it doesn't seem like it will be executed anytime soon, but he's got a feeling it's just as important as 9-11 in the grand scheme of things. 

Under normal circumstances, he would find a way to communicate back to his superiors but he has strict orders to take the traitor down himself. The military would really rather avoid the embarrassment of the public finding out one of their own has been working behind their backs. Not to mention the outrage. 

So while he's waiting, Chad spends his time with Firdaus. They help his grandmother with the cooking and cleaning, take turns going down to the stream for water and spend the afternoons inside an abandoned house fucking each other's brains out. Firdaus is beautiful with his jade-green eyes and Chad couldn't help but seduce him. 

He should probably feel a bit guilty about that considering that Firdaus then proceeds to spend the early evening praying in the mosque as though his life depends on it, but Chad doesn't. There's this swelling in his heart that grows with every passing day here and he can see reflections of that feeling in Firdaus' eyes. 

"I cannot resist you, against my better judgment," Firdaus whispers against his neck as they lie together, sweaty and sated, a tinge of sadness in his voice.

Chad feels guilty then, but doesn't say anything. He just brushes his lips against Firdaus' temple and wonders when everything will come crashing down around them.

  
Chad:  
1st Street, Butte, Montana, USA  
2009  


Outside, he pulls Jensen around the corner and then shoves his hands in his pockets to stop himself from touching him in any way that would surely be deemed inappropriate by the locals. Jensen leans against the nearest wall and tilts his head up towards the sky.

“You think the drugs kept me from remembering?”

“Dunno.” Chad moves a bit closer. “You ever get the hard stuff from anyone but Chris?”

“Yeah. Sometimes.” Jensen blows out a deep breath. “But even if it was the drugs from Chris, it wasn’t like I was the only one using them at parties and stuff.”

“Maybe some other way then. But now that we do know you’re missing memories, we can try to get them back.”

“How?” Jensen laughs wryly. “I mean maybe I don’t even have my name right.”

“We’ll figure it out, I promise.” Chad risks reaching out to touch Jensen’s wrist. “We will.”

Jensen nods. “We should probably get going.”

  
Jared:  
FBI Field Office, Los Angeles, USA  
2009  


He’s got Steve and Tom on a variety of charges, but he still doesn’t have Chris. Or whoever is above Chris or whether any of this actually ties back to a terrorist network. Plus now his cover is blown. Any second now Sandy is going to burst into the conference room he’s hiding out in at the LA field office and tear him a new one.

Harrison sticks his head in the door. “Special Agent Padalecki? Supervisory Special Agent McCoy is here to see you.”

Official titles and everything which just makes Jared wish Director Beaver would show up now because it can’t possibly get worse than this. 

“Have a seat, Special Agent Padalecki.” Sandy is all cool confidence as she walks and closes the door behind her. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Jared pours all his momma’s boy Texas charm into the words, but leaves out the smile as he sits down.

Sandy sits across from him, somehow picking a seat that makes her seem a lot taller than she actually is, and sets her briefcase on the table between them. Jared has always imagined it contains whips and chains. When she only takes out a file folder, he’s really disappointed. 

“We don’t have time to rebuild this mission. The only way to salvage anything is to get information out of Carlson.”

Jared knows he should be contrite and politely offer assistance, but he’s not that guy. “Hey, I’m your man.”

“We’ll see.” She slides a folder across to him. “You’ve got fifteen minutes with him.”

**

Carlson is sitting in the interrogation room looking calm, almost relieved. Jared frowns and glances down at the file folder. So far he hasn’t said much; didn’t want his lawyer. All Jared really has to go off of is what he already knows, but he’s gone in with less than that and gotten far more before.

“Mr. Carlson,” Jared says with a bright smile as he enters the room and sits down on the other side of the table.

“Mr. Carlson is my dad. Call me Steve.”

“Steve,” Jared repeats. “You’ve waived—“

“Let’s skip all the bullshit,” Steve interrupts. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but I want out of here. Witness Protection, whatever.”

Jared nods and then crooks his fingers at the window. Easier than he thought it would be.

  
Jensen:  
On US-12 outside of Rhame, North Dakota, USA  
2009  


Chad is calling his name, but Jensen ignores him in favor of trying not to throw up. He thought he was past all of this when they left Las Vegas. Then again, withdrawal or not, he’s apparently some kind of like amnesiac and he’s on the run from a bunch of drug lords. So he’s probably entitled to get sick.

He feels more than sees the car stop. His first instinct is to push the door open and collapse to the ground, so he does. It’s dusty like there hasn’t been rain and the field he’s facing is nothing but dry prairie grass. He curls in on himself as pain lances through his head. The pain is incredible, worse than anything he’s ever felt before. 

Someone is screaming. Screaming so loud it’s making his head hurt worse. His eyes are tearing up but he can make the vague outline of Chad kneeling beside him. Jensen reaches out and curls his fingers in Chad’s shirt to keep purchase on something real as he slips into darkness.

  
Jensen:  
Arlington, Virginia, USA  
2003  


No one in this room knows anyone else’s real name. Sure, it would be easy to find out but that’s against the whole ‘honor among thieves’ thing. Besides, they’ve been working together so long, they’re like family.

Their crew is run by Cordelia. She’s the brains of the operation, the one who coordinates with their so-called clients and sells things to the highest bidder. It helps that she’s stunning, always perfectly dressed and knows how to play up the ‘dumb pretty girl’ thing to its maximum potential.

Her second-in-command is Illyria, who is also their security expert. She looks innocent and naïve, but she can hack into any computer system in the world and bring it to its knees. 

Jensen goes by ‘Alec’ here. He’s trained in gymnastics and several martial arts. Plus he can do a mean tango. Not that he would ever tell anyone, but he used to be a cheerleader, and before that, a gymnast. This was back before his parents caught him in bed with the quarterback of the rival football team. It being Texas, Jensen was never quite sure whether it was the gay thing or the ‘sleeping with the enemy’ thing that pissed them off the most. Either way, he found himself kicked out of the house. 

He’s not sure what made him decide to become a thief, but he was damn good at it. So good that he beat out Phoebe, who was Cordeila’s go-to girl at the time. They kidnapped him and gave him the choice of training under Phoebe or leaving the city, so he chose the former. Two years later, Phoebe retired to marry some guy who she had previously stolen artwork from and Jensen became the go-to guy. 

Five years later and Illyria still teases him for breaking up the Powerpuff Girls. Although Cordelia is quick to point out that he totally counts as a girl. 

Their latest gig involves stealing chemical weapons for some guy in the Middle East or tied to the Middle East, whatever. In all likelihood this is not only illegal, but makes them traitors to their country. Only none of them are exactly patriots; they only answer to the highest bidder. 

“Okay so the security is gonna be hella bad,” Illyria says as she brings up the blueprints onto the screen. 

“It’s a government building, duh.” Cordelia turns to Jensen. “But Alec can handle it, right Alec?”

Jensen smirks. “Piece of cake.”

Illyria rolls her eyes. “Right. So I should skip the presentation then? Go get my nails done?”

“Well, your nails could use it,” Cordelia muses as she glances at Illyria. 

“I’d like the presentation, really. Present away,” Jensen jumps in before they can really get into it.

An hour later, Illyria has gone through every single layer of security, every exit, every tunnel, and every camera location. She’s a fucking genius at this stuff but Jensen can admit to being nervous. Who has ever broken into Pentagon and lived to tell the tale?

  
Jensen:  
Langley, Virginia, USA  
2003  


Okay so not exactly a piece of cake.

He’s made it to sub-basement three with Illyria’s help, but now his comm. link isn’t working, and he’s going from memory. There’s supposed to be a laser field in front of him and he’s been practicing his acrobat routine through it for weeks but this doesn’t look the same.

Quickly, he kneels down and opens a pocket on his cat-suit. There’s a small jar of powder in there and he blows it gently across where the first laser is supposed to be. Forty-five degree angle, just like expected. Maybe he’s just feeling nervous without Illyria’s constant chatter in his ear.

After putting the powder away, he takes a deep breath and then launches over the first laser into a handstand. He turns on his hands and slowly folds his body down and under the next laser. The whole routine plays through his head and he pivots, bends, stretches and flips through all of it until he reaches the door at the other end. 

The door is secured by several security measures. It’s going to take a voice command and pin code. Luckily, Cordelia was able to secure the voice code by flirting with some lab geek. The pin Jensen is going to have to figure out on his own since he doesn’t have Illyria in his ear. 

He takes out the powder again and blows it on the keypad. This was supposed to be timed so the last person to use the pad would be the lab geek. It’s a six-digit code of numbers and letters, but only five are touched, meaning one has been reused. Normally he’d jack in to get the code but this system is too complicated for that. Every person has their own code. 

His mind spins through the possibilities, the psych work-up Cordelia did of the guy, and comes up on a set of numbers. He holds the recorder with the voice command up and hits play. He’s asked to type in his pin and he takes a deep breath before punching in the numbers. 

The door opens, but instead of finding a chemical agent wanted by their clients, there’s a guy standing there. He’s pale with piercing blue eyes that match his tie. 

“Mr. Ackles. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  
Jensen:  
Location Unknown  
2004  


It was work for the government or go to prison, so Jensen chose the former. He’s not exactly sure which government agency this is, but he’s been in training with them for a year now. They want him to go undercover into some terrorist network. Jensen’s not exactly thrilled with this idea but he doesn’t have much of a choice.

He has very explicit instructions. 

Why a terrorist network is hiding out in Los Angeles, he has no idea. Maybe they’re working on their tans. Or maybe the government has no idea what its doing. Either way, he’s standing in an airport hangar waiting to be shipped into his new life.

  
Christian:  
FBI Field Office, Los Angeles, California, USA  
2009  


He knows he should feel angry, but instead he just feels relieved. Finally he can breathe and maybe now he has the chance to start over, to fix things with Steve. That is if he ever gets to see him again.

The same kid he hired for Tom is sent to interview him and Chris doesn’t bother to ask for his lawyer. His lawyer isn’t even his; it’s his boss’ lawyer. Not like that tie is going to help him out now. 

“Listen, kid,” Chris says before he can say anything. “I want a deal.”

“Is that so?” Jared smirks. “I really don’t think you’re in a position to bargain here, Mr. Kane.”

“You don’t want me. You want who I work for and I want a deal if I give that up.”

The kid stares at him for a second and then leaves the room. Chris sits there and wonders what the final straw was for Steve. It’s not like Steve was a saint himself. He’s killed people, tortured them, and made them do things. What he did to Jenny was enough to make Chris sick and it’s not like he hasn’t seen worse. Maybe he’s just exhausted like Chris. 

Or maybe he knows something Chris doesn’t. 

It was always a risk getting into bed with someone like that. Chris just tried not to think where all the money was coming from or where it was going. It’s easy to not think about it when it’s all happening a world away. 

The first time it all hit home was when Jenny showed up on the club scene four years ago. Steve was entranced by him and it made Chris jealous as hell, but he let Steve have his fun. Jenny was just a go-go dancer after all.

A couple of months later, Jenny moves into their penthouse. He’s wandering around all the time half-naked and distracting. Yet he’s very faithful to Steve and just smiles shyly at Chris’ advances. 

A year later, Steve comes to Chris and says Jenny is a spy. He’s got all this evidence against him. Their employer wants Jenny dead but Steve is sentimental in his own way, so he just beats the shit out of him instead. 

Steve hits him so hard in the head that Jenny wakes up and doesn’t even know his own name. It’s a lucky accident. Of course Jenny has no choice but to believe he was rescued by Steve and that some guy named Michael Rosenbaum screwed him over. He took in every line he was fed: the drugs, the prostitution, everything. 

They set him up in a loft and he was so grateful that he started hooking for them after he recovered. 

Later, Steve told him that Michael Rosenbaum wasn’t Jenny’s boyfriend. He was one of Jenny’s contacts. Only Jenny is so deep undercover that they don’t speak. They have this whole system of notes left in crossword puzzles and Steve’s got that covered, not to worry.

Maybe it wasn’t Jenny they needed to worry about after all.

  
Chad:  
On I-94 outside of Belfield, North Dakota, USA  
2009  


Jensen is scaring the shit out of him. He’s been passed out for almost an hour now. When he didn’t wake up after a few minutes, Chad put him in the SUV and started driving again. Despite the risk he’s on the highway, trying to get to the nearest hospital. It’s only a few minutes away but it seems like it’s taking hours.

To his relief, Jensen wakes up when he takes the exit to Dickinson. Chad pulls over onto a side street and touches his cheek.

“Jensen?” 

Only Jensen doesn’t respond, he just reaches down and rips off his left shoe and sock. His body twists in a way that looks really uncomfortable so that his heel faces up on the seat.

“Can you read that?” Jensen asks, pointing at a smudge on his skin. 

“Not really.” Chad leans closer. “It kind of looks like a number. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Jensen touches his forehead to Chad’s. “I remember. I remember who I am.”

**

They buy a magnifying glass at a drug store in town. It’s really one of those cheater things old people use to read fine print, but it’ll do. In the parking lot, Chad holds it up to Jensen’s heel and he’s finally able to make out a set of numbers. 

“7575551978,” Chad reads off as Jensen writes it all down on a pad of paper. “And then there’s something under that.”

He gently smooths Jensen’s skin out to read it. “81A3827.”

“Got it.”

“You’re an agent, aren’t you?” Chad questions softly. “That’s your identity code.”

Jensen nods. “I think so. Back there on the road, some of it came to me. Apparently I used to be a thief, but the government, the CIA, maybe? Caught me and gave me a choice between prison and working for them. I was supposed to infiltrate Kane’s organization, but something went wrong.”

Chad doesn’t know what to think about this development. He’s not exactly enamored of the government after what they did to him. Gently, he touches Jensen’s cheek and then kisses him softly.

“You should report in.”

“What about you?” Jensen bites his lip. “I don’t want to leave you behind.”

“Jensen, they think I’m a terrorist. The only reason I didn’t wind up in prison somewhere is because they didn’t have enough evidence and I refused to speak or give up anything.”

“You never did tell me what happened,” Jensen coaxes.

“It’s not important.” Chad moves away and gets out of the SUV. “Report in. Don’t worry about me.”

"You say that like it's easy." Jensen follows after him, his hands curling into fists.

Chad sighs. "I know it's not."

"Tell me what happened," Jensen insists.

"I failed my objective, I got emotionally involved. I can't let you go through the same thing."

"I don't care about the fucking objective!" Jensen shouts. "I care about you!"

The words hit Chad hard and make him flinch. "When you see Rosenbaum, tell him the General was right all along. Tell him they should've looked under the mosque."

"What does that even mean?"

Chad shakes his head and starts walking out into the field. He doesn't want to get into this. The flashbacks, the nightmares, are bad enough as it is. All he wants is to be able to save someone he cares about. He's failed so many others.

Jensen reaches out and grabs Chad’s wrist. “Please, Chad. Don’t leave me.”

“You don’t need me, Jensen.”

Chad tries to extract himself out of Jensen’s grip, but Jensen won’t let him. He pulls Chad in closer and kisses him desperately. As much as Chad knows he should pull away and run, he doesn’t. He lets Jensen pull him into the SUV and kisses him back for all he’s worth. 

“I do need you,” Jensen whispers between kisses. “We’ll figure something out, I promise.”

He nods but doesn't really believe the words. He's heard them before and look where they got him.


	6. epilogue

  
Michael:  
Arlington, Virginia, USA  
2010  


It’s overcast and cold on the day of the funeral. Everyone is wearing dark overcoats as they huddle around the coffin while the priest gives his eulogy. More people than he expected came out for it. He stays away, several rows up and just watches.

During the 21 gun salute, he can feel someone standing behind him, but he doesn’t turn. “You shouldn’t have come, Agent Ackles.”

Jensen steps up next to him and buries his hands in his pockets. “I needed to, Sir.”

They stand in silence until the mourners have all walked away, leaving the gravedigger behind with the coffin. Some relative is clutching the folded up flag to her chest like a life-preserver. 

“He wasn’t a terrorist.” Jensen turns and looks at Michael. “No one in that village was.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you do that?” Jensen clenches his jaw. “Why did you make him go through that trial? Why didn’t you just leave him alone?”

“It was a tactical decision.”

“Bullshit,” Jensen spits.

Michael raises an eyebrow. “He failed his objective. The whole point was to capture the real traitor, but he was too caught up in his own grief to do so.”

“You didn’t have to hang him out to dry!” Jensen shouts.

"Yes, we did. We couldn't let anyone in that network know we were on to them, not until we had enough evidence, until we figured out what they were planning."

"You got him killed, you fucking bastard," Jensen growls.

“That last job you did. Do you know who the buyer was?” Michael asks, ignoring Jensen’s outburst. 

“I never knew.”

“Charisma never did either. Or should I call her Cordelia? Regardless, she made a deal with the Feds right after we captured you. Only piece of information she had was the guy’s location: Los Angeles and his associate: Kane. Big city though, not a lot to go on. Not when Kane wouldn't crack, pardon the pun.”

“So you sent me,” Jensen surmises bitterly. 

“And the Feds sent their own people a few years later. Of course they didn’t know what we were doing.”

“Did you know about my… condition?” Jensen asks after a pause. 

“Not at first.” Michael slips on a pair of sunglasses as the sun starts to peek out of the clouds. “Turned out to be useful though, didn’t it?”

“You bastard,” Jensen whispers. “Don’t you care about anyone?”

“I care about our country, Agent Ackles.” Michael gazes off toward the Lincoln Memorial. “I care that millions of lives were saved when Lafferty was captured. Murray was a Marine; he would’ve understood that.”

He walks away without looking back. It took him seven years to get his man. Seven years after he had the General give those orders to Murray. He feels like he’s aged at least five times that. Murray went to bat for them one last time to save all their asses when he went after Lafferty with a vengeance two months ago, giving them everything they'd been looking for to nail him to the wall. Despite the victory, he feels like a failure for letting so many lives get ruined in the process. Not that he would ever admit it.

  
Jensen:  
Key West, Florida, USA  
2011  


Two days ago, Rosenbaum handed him a packet of paper and told him to take a vacation. Inside was a ticket to Miami and reservations at a hotel in Key West. Sure, Jensen had been working non-stop since Chad’s funeral, but he doesn’t want to go to Florida. It’s too bright and sunny and happy there. If he had his choice, he’d go somewhere just as depressing as he is, like Seattle or Siberia or something.

Rosenbaum made it an order when Jensen kept refusing though, so now he’s sitting at a bar on Duval Street sipping a cranberry juice and wondering if hiding out in his hotel room is an option. Except that Rosenbaum also booked him on some fishing thing. Jensen doesn’t fish. He doesn’t even like to eat fish. 

On the second day, he reports in, just in case they need him. Of course, Rosenbaum’s assistant tells him to fuck off, but in politer terms. So he wanders up and down the streets aimlessly and pretends he’s on a mission where he has to pose as a tourist. A tourist who has to do all the touristy things as part of the mission. 

Only that gets boring really quickly and he’s actually looking forward to the fishing trip the next day. 

**

He doesn’t get much sleep the night before. As always, Chad is the star of all his dreams. They weren’t really close until the end, but Jensen knows there will never be room for anyone else in his heart. 

Really, he tried dating. He went out with Jared a couple of times and it was fun, but he broke it off before it went anywhere. It was kind of awkward anyway given their history. Who wants to date someone you met under false pretenses?

So he arrives at the boat dock early and just kind of hovers there and watches the fishermen do their thing. Almost all of them are burly looking guys with deep tans and scars and tattoos. Jensen’s hoping the younger guy at the far end is his captain instead because at least he’ll have something to look at besides fish. 

In boredom, he kind of zones out and goes through the case files sitting at his desk in his head. There’s a mission in Colombia he’s supposed to coordinate and something about computer chips from Russia. 

“Hey, are you Alec?”

Jensen looks up and starts to shake his head when he recognizes who said it. “Chad?”

Chad’s eyes go wide and he tentatively touches Jensen’s face. “Is that really you, Jensen?”

Without a second thought, Jensen pulls Chad into a hug, burying his face against Chad’s neck. He smells like salt and suntan lotion and Jensen can’t get enough. It’s really hard to choke back tears so he doesn’t bother. 

“I thought you were dead,” Jensen whispers against his skin. 

“Rosenbaum made a deal with me, but he said I could never contact you again if I wanted you to be safe.” Chad pulls back and wipes Jensen’s tears away. “After everything, that’s all I wanted was for you to be safe.”

“He sent me here on vacation,” Jensen says, torn between laughter and more tears. “God, I hate him.”

Chad pulls Jensen close until they’re pressed hip to chest. “You know, now that I have you, I’m not letting you go.”

Jensen grins and leans in until he’s almost kissing Chad. “Trust me, I'm not going anywhere."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains Spoilers:
> 
>  
> 
> Before this, I hadn't written anything longer than 10 pages in years. Short stories are my thing and anything longer than that, I tend to abandon in some form of writer's ADHD. Yet, I signed myself up for spn_j2_bigbang and then found myself writing not one story, but two. In the end, I finished this one. I must say that I never intended it to be about war and terrorism but that's just the direction it took. It did give me the opportunity to research Afghanistan and found that the Kamdesh District is a fascinating mix of beauty and turmoil.


End file.
